


The Legend of Rofinn Hood

by Lunatique (lunafana)



Category: Robin Hood (Traditional), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, F/M, not sorry, yes i know this isn't how the longbow works sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 09:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11506095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunafana/pseuds/Lunatique
Summary: When a man-at-arms under the dreaded Sheriff of Nottingham refuses an order and escapes his service, he kicks off a series of events he could not have imagined.





	The Legend of Rofinn Hood

The Sheriff’s men rode in on the night, their torches blazing in the darkness and the beat of their hooves shattering the quiet. Two armored figures, one burnished dark as the night itself and the other gleaming like a steel mirror. Men in steel caps and mail followed behind on foot.  
  
In the sleepy valley the villagers ran out of their huts, clutching knives and axes and whatever other weapons or implements they could grab. Children squalled from their parents’ arms or clung to whatever trusted leg they could hide behind.  
  
The Sheriff, clad in his black armor and cloak, stopped at the village entrance and the rest of the men stopped behind him. The figure in the polished armor, his trusted lieutenant Phasma, rode forward.   
  
“The bandit Poe Scarlet has been tracked to this village.” Her voice echoed cold as a sword from behind her visor. “In the name of Prince Snoke, give him up now or be declared outlaws yourselves.”  
  
“We know not where this man is, Lady Phasma.” A robed man with a white beard, the village elder Lor San Tekka, pushed to the front of the gathered villagers. “Bandit he may be, but they say Poe Scarlet and the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest are men of honor, taking from the rich their ill-gotten gains to give to the poor.”  
  
“Play not the fool with me, old man.” The Sheriff alighted from his black horse, the reflected lights of the village blazing in his visor like burning eyes. “We know he is here, and even as we waste words on you he flees ever farther like the coward he is.”  
  
“A coward, Sheriff?” San Tekka faced the looming form. “Perhaps that were a word better suited to one who goes about with his face hidden. From mortal eyes he may cloak his shame, but not from the Force.”  
  
The Sheriff struck San Tekka across the face with a gauntleted hand, throwing him to the ground while the villagers cried out in alarm.  Some ran forward to help the old man but the Sheriff drew his blade which gleamed red as a flame in the night.  
  
“Fire the village. Block the exits and take these peasants to Castle Nottingham.” He pointed the sword at the villagers. “We shall have a harvest for the gallows. Separate the children, they will make fine soldiers for Prince Snoke’s glory.”  
  
The Sheriff’s men advanced and the villagers started fleeing or fighting back. Lor San Tekka struggled to rise from the ground. “You could not do this if King Luke the Lionhearted were still here.”  
  
The Sheriff knelt down on one knee close to the old man. “How easily you show your hand, old fool. That is why the bandit was here, was he not? Where is the map?”  
  
“I know not of what you speak.”  
  
“Then you are of no use to me.” The Sheriff raised his red blade high.  
  
A whistling sound from high up pierced through the sounds of battle and despair. The Sheriff swung his sword and an arrow sliced in two fell to his feet.  
  
“Over there!” One of the Sheriff’s men pointed upward at the trees at the edge of the village, where a shadowy form illuminated by the light of the burning huts leapt from branch to branch. The Sheriff’s men chased after the archer in the trees, shooting arrows at him, while he in turn fired back as he fled.  
  
One of the men stopped mid-chase and keeled over, the long shaft of an arrow in his chest.  
  
“Slip!” His fellow, a lithe man with a longbow slung across his back, caught the falling man and eased him down to the ground.   
  
Slip opened his mouth to say something, but coughed blood instead. He raised a bloodied hand before it fell, limp, across his comrade’s face, leaving the dark skin marked with blood.  
  
“Idiots!” The Sheriff strode by the dead man and the man holding him without a glance at them, and raised his hand at the trees. He murmured an incantation and the trees rustled as though in fear while even his own men shrank back.   
  
The next moment a cloaked figure fell from the branches, hands locked to his sides as though in the stiffness of death, and lay unmoving. The Sheriff’s men swarmed him and raised him roughly from the ground.  
  
The prisoner was thrown to the Sheriff’s feet and the hood of his cloak torn back.   
  
“Poe Scarlet.” The Sheriff nodded to himself. “Search him.”  
  
While the Sheriff’s men searched Poe, a cry came from the edge of the village. “Look! There’s one getting away!”  
  
“Is that a man or a spider to climb like that?”  
  
Where the men pointed, a figure that looked tiny in the distance was climbing a wall of the valley, one so sheer that the soldiers had not thought to guard it. They shot at the fleeing form but it was already out of their range and the arrows bounced off the rocks.  
  
“Fnor! Shoot down that fugitive immediately!”  
  
At Phasma’s command the man with the blood-marked face looked up from where he was kneeling next to Slip. He stood, his face expressionless and hands working like automata to string his longbow and take an arrow from the quiver at his side. He drew back his arm and aimed.  
  
Then he paused.  
  
“What are you doing?” Phasma strode up to him. “Take the shot, now.”  
  
Fnor relaxed the arm holding the bowstring and lowered his bow. “I cannot. It is too far.”  
  
Phasma stepped close to him. “Think not that you fool me, churl. I have seen you hit the mark at twice that distance.”  
  
“It is night and my hands are unsteady.” Fnor looked down at his blood-slicked hands. “I cannot.”  
  
As they watched, the climbing figure clambered over the lip of the valley and disappeared from sight.  
  
“We shall speak of this later.” Phasma turned from him and shouted at her men to round up the prisoners. They rode out, herding the frightened and wailing villagers and the children screaming for their parents, with the light of the burning village behind them.  
  


 

The door to the torture chamber opened and the prisoner groaned as he looked away. Bloodied from the ministrations of his interrogator and tied down on a rack, Poe’s eyes were still defiant as he fixed his eyes on the newcomer.  
  
“Sheriff wants the prisoner,” Fnor told the guard at the chamber door, his face washed of blood and his cap and mail shining in the dim light.   
  
The guard, wearing a distinctive red cape broidered with gold thread, untied Poe and let him drop to the floor. Fnor picked the prisoner up and set him on his feet where he staggered, trying to regain his balance.   
  
“My cape, if you please.” Poe looked at the guard. “I should like to die in my colors at least.”  
  
Fnor looked from Poe to the guard, then stripped off the guard’s cape. “You dress above your station.”  
  
Fnor, holding the cloak balled in one hand, pushed Poe ahead of him and down the dungeon corridor with cells on either side. Some of the prisoners called out to Poe and to Fnor:  
  
“Poe Scarlet! Help us!”  
  
“Save us, we did no wrong but having you as a guest.”  
  
“I beg you, give me news of my daughter. Is she well? Can I hold her, even- even one last time?”  
  
“Shame on ye! Are you of woman born, do you have a soul?”  
  
Poe tried to turn and answer, give some reassurance, but Fnor pushed him ahead and forced him forward.  
  
Once they were aboveground and in the maze-like corridors of Castle Nottingham, Fnor drew Poe aside into a side hallway. Poe looked from the young man’s face to the dagger at his side, his hands flexing.  
  
“Can you ride?”  
  
Taken off guard, Poe stared at the Sheriff’s man. “What?”  
  
“They say you are the best horseman in England. Are you in a condition to ride?”  
  
“I can ride in my sleep, yet- what are you saying? I thought you were going to…?” Poe glanced again at Fnor’s dagger.  
  
“I considered it.” Fnor looked Poe in the eye. “You slew one of my fellows last night.”  
  
Poe closed his eyes a moment. “I am sorry for your loss, but not for the deed. Strike me down now if that answer displease you.”  
  
Fnor shook his head. “I cannot, in good conscience. This is a rescue, not an execution.”  
  
“Conscience… are you truly the Sheriff’s man? Are you one of the Merry Men?”  
  
“I am a man, nothing more.”  
  
Poe searched the other man’s face with his gaze. “You need a rider.”  
  
“They do not teach us to ride, for fear we may escape. I have watched the Knights, but an escape attempt is a poor time to discover how quick a study I am.”  
  
“As the Force is my witness, friend, we will leave this place together.” Poe’s face lit up in a smile.  
  
Fnor nodded, the light of hope entering his own face as though in a reflection of Poe’s joy.  
  
  
They entered the stables together, Poe wearing his cloak inside-out to show the brown inner lining and the hood hiding face from view.   
  
An armed guard before the stable doors barred their way with his spear. “What is your business in the Sheriff’s stables?”  
  
“The Sheriff’s guest is leaving.” Fnor gestured at Poe. “Delay him at your peril.”  
  
“I was given no word of a guest taking his leave.” The guard took a step toward Poe. “I will need to see his face.”  
  
The guard’s knees buckled and he fell forward; Fnor sheathed the dagger whose pommel he had used to strike the man from behind. “As I said, at your peril.”  
  
“Quickly.” Poe opened a stable door to lead out a grey horse, then pointed to a brown horse in the next stall. “Take that one. We will need a change of horse, especially if we ride two to one.”  
  
Fnor opened the stable door with the brown horse behind it while Poe saddled and bridled the grey. When the brown horse balked, Poe gave the reins of the grey to Fnor and coaxed out the second animal, whom he also proceeded to tack. He then vaulted onto the grey and helped Fnor clamber up behind him, with the reins of the brown slung over Fnor’s arm.  
  
Poe looked over his shoulder. “Can you shoot from horseback?”  
  
“They say horsemen in the East perform such feats. I have never seen it done.”  
  
“The attempt alone may save us, friend. Are you ready?”  
  
Fnor took his bow from his back, strung it, and nocked an arrow. “Let us fly from this place.”  
  
“And fly we will. Hold fast!”  
  
“A moment! I have no free aaaaaarms-“  
  
Poe had already spurred their ride forward out of the stables, the brown horse dragged along with a whinny of protest while Fnor clung tight with his legs and swayed with the motion of both horses.  
  
“The gates are that way!” Fnor pointed with the arrow in his hand, fighting against the pull of the brown horse’s rein. The arm holding his bow clasped tight around Poe’s waist.  
  
They were halfway toward the main gates before they were challenged. “Stop! State your business!”  
  
Poe’s answer was to lean lower over their mount’s neck and dig his boots  into the animal’s sides. Arrows came flying their way and Fnor ducked as one brushed over his steel cap.  
  
“Now would be a good time for you to fire back!” Poe shouted over the thunder of hooves, the swish of arrows, and the clamor of the guards.  
  
“Aye, and break my neck.” Fnor unclenched his arm from around Poe’s waist, his legs clutching the horse’s sides, brought his bow to bear and nocked the arrow he had been holding in a white-knuckled grip.  
  
The brown horse chose that moment to attempt to bolt, dragging Fnor off center and nearly off the saddle. His shot went wide; Poe turned the grey’s head to go with the brown for a few paces before returning to the course, sparing Fnor a dive into the mud.  
  
Fnor’s arrow, meanwhile, arced high above the walls—only to come back down and pierce an archer on a wall through the back.   
  
Poe let out a whoop as he urged the horse on its gallop. “A feat for the ages!”   
  
Fnor gave a brilliant smile, eyes still wide in shock, before he turned his attention to the walls where the archers were firing at them and returned fire. His shots bounced off the walls but the archers drew back at the unexpected counterattack, earning them precious seconds.  
  
“Enemies before us!” shouted Poe. A contingent of guards ran to block their path to the gate, headed by a knight in golden armor.  
  
“Stay low.” Fnor steadied himself, raising his bow and nocking in one motion. The gold-clad knight put his lance in rest, preparing to charge.  
  
Fnor loosed his arrow, and the knight raised his visored face as it came toward him. Then his head snapped to his left, where a man at arms went flying backward with an arrow in his chest.   
  
A second arrow whined through the air, taking out the man next to the first and opening a gap in the line.  
  
“Ride!” Fnor pointed at the gap with his bow and the grey galloped like a mad dream even as the golden knight charged. Poe’s direction took him an iota to the right of the golden knight’s trajectory, the tip of the lance swinging close enough that Fnor swerved in his seat to avoid it. The riders’ boots brushed as they went but the knight, as much carried by his forward rush as his prey, could not come about in time to stop them.  
  
The grey and the brown plunged through the gap in the line. Ahead of them the latticed gate was descending, and toward this last opening Poe urged his frothing mount.  
  
“This is madness.” Fnor’s eyes widened as they raced the dropping gate toward freedom.  
  
“This is madness!” Poe’s eyes gleamed with delirious delight.  
  
The next moment they were through and the gate slammed down behind them. The two men and two horses galloped together toward the wild lands beyond Nottingham Castle, futile arrows and the fury of pursuit following behind.  
  
  
“I may never walk again.” Fnor groaned as he leaned on Poe to pace the forest clearing while their horses grazed. “Nor do I wish to.”  
  
“Easy, friend. What you did would have laid out many a knight who spent more of his life in the saddle than on the ground.” Poe supported Fnor’s weight as the archer took one step and then another. “Was this truly your first time on horseback? Your first time with mounted archery? The bards shall sing of you for decades to come!”  
  
“I wish for no songs, only to be away.” Fnor eased his way to a tree and stood with his hand braced against it. He stretched one leg and then the other with a grimace. “And ‘Fnor’ is hardly a name anyone would sing about.”  
  
“Fnor—is that your name?”  
  
The young man ducked his head, shame coloring his face. “They gave me no other.”  
  
“But why? Does it have a meaning?”  
  
Fnor shrugged. “The reason is not obvious to me.”  
  
Poe though for a moment. “With your leave, friend, may I use a different name? A new name would not be amiss for a man on the run from the Sheriff.”  
  
Fnor nodded. “Have you one in mind?”  
  
“Or-fn… no, Ro-fn. What say you to Rofinn? Your intimates would know you as Finn.”  
  
“Rofinn. Finn. I like it well. You will call me Finn, of course?”   
  
“By your leave, of course.”  
  
“You have it. Well met, Poe.”  
  
“Well met, Finn.”  
  
They grasped each other by the hand and smiled in the sunlight that drifted down from the green leaves above.  
  
“We have rested and must ride again.” Finn’s voice took on a note of resignation. “’Tis no longer the Sheriff alone but the Golden Knight that hunts us.”  
  
“Know you who he is, the knight in gold?”  
  
“Sir Armitage Hux, a knight sworn to Prince Snoke.” Finn went to the brown horse and put one foot in a stirrup, only to recoil in pain the moment he tried to put weight on his leg. “He is no minion of the Sheriff’s, and they vie against each other for Snoke’s favor.”  
  
Poe led the grey horse over to the brown and, holding the grey’s rein, leapt into the brown’s saddle without touching the stirrup. He reached out to help Finn onto the saddle.  
  
“Hux’s cruelty is known throughout England and abroad. They say he is the one who leads the despicable practice of stealing away children to serve in Snoke’s-“ He paused in the midst of helping Finn swing a stiff leg over the horse’s back. Finn had fallen silent, his face hard.  
  
“Forgive me, friend, I spoke rashly.” Poe spun toward Finn and reached for his shoulder.  
  
“Nay.” Finn looked away. “You have the truth of the matter. And you know now why we must fly far from here.”  
  
Poe struck the reins on the neck of the grey horse, coaxing it to a walk. “Yet my path takes me back to Tuanul.”  
  
Finn started. “The village? It is nothing but cinders and ghosts, you know this.”  
  
“I know it.” Poe’s throat worked. “Yet I must pass through it toward the Glades, for hence have I sent BeBe.”  
  
“BeBe?”  
  
“Blazing Beatrice, my steed.” A fond smile spread across Poe’s face.  
  
Finn stared at the back of Poe’s head. “No horse can be worth such danger.”  
  
“By my name, this one is. She is a bright red and white, almost orange. There is none like her on this green earth.”  
  
“I care not about her hues, wherefore such value on a horse…?” Finn came to a pause and slid back in the saddle, as far as he could get from Poe on horseback. “Nay, make no answer.  Truly ignorance, at times, is bliss.”  
  
Poe spun in the saddle. “As the Force is my witness, friend, if I were to have unnatural relations with a horse it would not be with a mare-“  
  
His eyes widened as they fell on a point above Finn’s head. He spun back to face the front and spurred the horse to a canter and then a gallop. Shouts and the clink of mail and weapons followed them.  
  
“You cannot still be resolved to go through Tuanul!” Finn fumbled for his bow, wincing as he steadied himself with his overtaxed legs.  
  
“Forgive me, I am.” Poe bent over the brown horse’s neck, moving in time with the animal and coaxing more speed from its movements while the grey, though riderless, struggled to keep up. “I can give you the grey if you would take another path, I only wish he had more strength left in him.”  
  
Finn thought for a moment, clinging to Poe with both arms, before he raised his voice over the beating hooves and the sounds of pursuit. “Cut the poor beast loose. He cannot carry me far, and I shall never surrender to the Sheriff’s men.”  
  
“A brave answer!” The forest thinned around them as they approached the hilly land beyond.  
  
“From hence we stand or fall together, Poe Scarlet.” Finn grimaced. “Or you may stand, perchance.”  
  
Poe released the grey’s reins as they left the shade of the forest, where it slowed to a trot and then a walk.  
  
The road sloped upward as Poe took a path u44p toward the mountains, the path growing narrower as it hugged the steep slopes. To their right the valleys opened wide and deep, swallowing the sounds of their ascent and those of their pursuers.  
  
“They draw ever nearer, damn them.” Poe looked over his shoulder.  
  
“We are two to a horse and their rides are fresh.” Finn grasped his longbow. “Let them come closer I will give them a friendly welcome.”  
  
“On this narrow path we may pluck them one by one from the line until your quiver is empty. Perhaps we shall stall them enough to hide in these hills.”  
  
The enemy grew closer and closer as they rounded the bends of the path. Finn turned, nocked and arrow, and drew.  
  
At that moment an arrow whistled through the air and their horse screamed under them and fell mid-pace, throwing Poe over its neck.   
  
“Poe!”  
  
Poe skittered across the path and, still grasping for a handhold, fell over the edge, his cloak trailing after him. Finn followed him in a slide and grasped the hem of the cloak an instant before it could disappear.  
  
Poe looked up, pale, from where he dangled by his cloak over the vast hollow below.   
  
“Fear not, I will-“ straining, Finn pulled at the cloak while Poe tried to climb it as he would a rope.   
  
Finn reached a hand down while Poe reached up when more arrows started flying as the pursuers came within bow-range. The projectiles struck the ground around Finn as he strained for Poe’s hand.  
  
“Save yourself, Rofinn.” Poe’s face grew even paler, but his voice was steady. “Release me.”  
  
“No! Take my hand, I can save you before these dogs are upon us.” Finn ducked his head just in time to avoid an arrow flying at his head.  
  
“My Bebe has the way to King Luke.” Poe fumbled at the clasp of his cloak. “As you love me, find her and take the map to the Merry Men.”  
  
“Poe Scarlet, you curse your soul if you relinquish your life here!” More arrows landed around Finn, one nicking his hand and prompting a cry of pain.  
  
“Farewell.” Poe released the clasp, throwing Finn back from the strain of pulling backward with only the scarlet cloak in his hand.  
  
“POE!” Finn lunged back toward the edge as though to throw himself over it, but an arrow landed in his path, making him flinch back.  
  
“Surrender yourself, traitor!” The Sheriff’s men rode around the bend toward him, swords gleaming and bows aimed.  
  
Finn stared at them a moment, then at the red cloak in his hand. He looked back up and threw the cloak into the air.  
  
Bowstrings twanged, but the arrows struck air. Finn had thrown himself toward the horse where it lay frothing and snatched his bow from the ground. Sliding along the ground, he drew arrows from the quiver at his side and fired as he went, felling a man with every shot. He came to a stop against a rock, which he knelt behind, and shot around it at the men-at-arms who charged him.   
  
When one last arrow remained in Finn’s quiver, only the leader of the pursuers remained standing. Finn rose up from behind his rock, his last arrow aimed. The cloak he had thrown into the air landed between the two of them, drifting on a wind with the grace of a butterfly.  
  
“Do you care to tempt fate, Captain?” Finn pulled the bowstring back.  
  
The captain looked at the bodies around bodies around him. “The Sheriff will see to it you die screaming.”  
  
“Take another step and you will never hear it.”  
  
The captain turned his horse and galloped back the way he came. Finn narrowed his eyes, training his arrow on the retreating form, before he shook his head and lowered his bow. The next moment he collapsed, clutching at his legs.  
  
“Poe Scarlet.” He crawled to the edge of the path and looked down, where only the valley opened up below. He searched the depths with his eyes before he looked away, squeezing his eyes shut.  
  
Finn picked up the cloak, balled it up in a hand, and drew it back for a throw. He then lowered it and spread it in his hands to look at it. After a moment he threw it over his shoulders and fastened the clasp.  
  
He took arrows from the quivers of the fallen archers and continued his way up the mountain pass, grunting with every step and his eyes haunted.

 

He limped on out of the mountains and toward the Glade, shedding his halberd, mail and cap as he went and leaving no trace of the Sheriff’s insignia upon him. The land grew more wooded as he went, and at one point he shot and killed a rabbit that crossed his path. He camped by a stream at night before he prepared and ate the animal, taking care to shield the fire by stacking wood around it, and buried the remains of his meal before he left in the morning.  
  
The next day, as he traveled on with more energy in his steps, he spied in the distance a cloaked figure on horseback. A ragged form emerged from the brush to grasp the horse’s reins, and while the cloaked rider looked down at the interloper another figure ran out of the foliage on the opposite side, an upraised knife glinting in the sun.  
  
Finn gave a shout of warning and ran forward, though he stumbled and clutched at his leg. Before he could reach the scene, however, the horse snapped at the man holding its reins. At the same time the rider took up a quarterstaff slung across their back and struck the second attacker soundly across the face, knocking him backward. On the back swing the rider gave the first assailant such a blow that he, too, was lay flat upon the ground.  
  
Finn stared, one hand upon an arrow in his quiver and the other on his bow, when the rider wheeled around to survey the area and saw him. At that moment he caught sight of the front quarters of the horse not covered by the rider’s torn and dusty cloak, the red-and-white colouring that gave off a burning light in the sun.  
  
The horse, Blazing Beatrice for it could only be she, gave a neigh like a battle cry and charged Finn seemingly of her own accord. Finn looked around and, finding himself alone, turned to run. The horse came thundering up behind him in moments; he rolled out of the way as BeBe attempted to run him down.  
  
“What has possessed thee, mad mare?” The rider’s hood was thrown back in the wild ride and revealed the face of a maiden. She pulled at the reins of her errant steed, trying to bring the beast about. BeBe, fighting the rider’s control, leapt at Finn where he lay and stood over him, snorting into his face.  
  
“Who are you, yeoman?” The maiden rider thrust her quarterstaff in Finn’s face. “This horse has declared you her mortal enemy, and feckless though she can be I trust she has cause in this matter.”  
  
“BeBe?” Finn ventured, and the horse’s ears pricked in recognition before she laid them flat again and brought her nose closer to Finn’s, forcing him to lie back.  
  
“BeBe?” the rider repeated, and the horse gave a friendlier whinny.  
  
“That is her name, BeBe, Blazing Beatrice, else I am the son of a mare.” Finn glanced at BeBe’s face two inches from his own. “But not of this one, I’ll wager.”  
  
The maiden laughed. “Are you her master?”  
  
“It was my honor to have known him.” Finn closed his eyes as though in pain. “She was the beloved steed of Poe Scarlet of Sherwood Forest.”  
  
BeBe’s ears pricked again before she grasped the front of Finn’s cloak in her teeth and glared at him.  
  
Finn met the steed’s eyes. “You wonder, and justly, why I wear your master’s cloak. We escaped the Sheriff together, yet I could not save him. Forgive me, loyal beast.”  
  
BeBe’s head drooped and she turned away as though she understood. The maiden dismounted and patted BeBe’s neck with hands that were bandaged with strips torn from her own cloak, the deepest sympathy written across her features. Finn arose and unclasped the red cloak to hold it out to BeBe, who took it in her mouth and dragged it down the road a little ways to stiff and nuzzle at it.  
  
The maiden met Finn’s eyes where they now stood face-to-face.   
  
“You are one of the Merry Men, then, good sir? Tales have I heard of you and your fellows’ bravery, and they bring cheer to all people of good faith in these troubled times.”  
  
Finn stared a moment before he answered: “Certainly, good lady. Have I not the mien of a Merry Man? I am… merry, and a man besides.”  
  
She smiled. “I must seek the aid of the Merry Men on a matter of the utmost urgency. Will you guide me to Sherwood, brave yeoman? Innocent souls will perish if the Merry Men ride not to the rescue.”  
  
Finn was about to answer when the sound of hoofbeats interrupted. Arrows landed on the ground before their feet, and riders came over a rise behind them with the deadly gleam of steel in their hands.  
  
“Come, you must away!” Finn snatched the maiden’s hand and sprinted toward BeBe where she stood with Poe’s cloak.   
  
“Oh, thou ruffian! Outlaw! Have thy courtesies quite deserted thee?” The maiden kept pace with him, scowling as she endeavored to pull her bandaged hand from his grip.  
  
“Forgive me, sweet lady, and for this also I seek penance.” He grasped the lady around the waist, making her gasp, and lifted her onto the saddle before he swatted BeBe’s rump. “Fly, Beatrice!”  
  
BeBe did so, leaving behind her rider’s cry of indignation that she would fight. Faster than the eye could follow Finn drew arrows from his quiver, strung his bow, and loosed the missiles in quick succession. One of the pursuing horses fell in a cloud of dust and a scream of pain, as did two of the men-at-arms following on foot.  
  
Without pause Finn picked up the scarlet cloak from the ground and plunged into the woods at the side of the road, the hue and cry of pursuit rising behind him.


End file.
